Janice McGrath loves to laugh. When something strikes at her funny bone, she tosses her head back and roars. Lately, every part of her life is cause for celebration. This February of 2001, she turned 44. "An amazing victory," she says with a triumphant gleam in her bright blue eyes, "especially since I didn't think I'd live to see 40."

 

When you first meet 33 year-old Lynne Graziano-Morin, you would never suspect that this doe-eyed beauty is a double cancer survivor who lives with chronic pain. Her smile is so bright, and her laughter so contagious, that it is a long time before you notice the bottle of pain medication which is her constant companion.

On December 17, of 1992, thirty-five year old McGrath had just completed her Master's Degree in Business Administration while working full time in a senior management position for a non-profit human service agency in Massachusetts. Her job was stressful and demanding. One evening, after an exhausting day on the job, she felt a lump in her breast.

The discovery was a tremendous shock to her because she was in perfect health. "This lump just seemed to come up over night," she explains. "It was about the size of a quarter and I knew that I was in terrible trouble."

Today, as Janice recalls the moment when her physician said the words, "You have aggressive breast cancer," her eyes fill with tears. "The next evening, I met friends for dinner. I wasn't going to tell them about the lump, but somehow it just came out. And from that second on, I had an enormous support team which I truly needed to get through everything I was about to face."

Throughout her treatments, Janice continued to work at the human service agency. Although she never expected to be discriminated against because she had cancer, that is exactly what happened to her. Half way through chemotherapy, the agency president called her into his office and demoted her.

"It was horrible," Janice says. "The demotion came at a time when I needed some normalcy and stability in my life. I didn't need any additional assaults on my self-image. The cancer was causing loss after loss and my whole life seemed to be spinning out of control."

Janice saw a lawyer who gave her very poor advice. "He told me there was nothing much I could do because my salary wasn't cut. Later on, I found out that wasn't true at all. There was a lot I could have done!"

Instead, she was forced to grin and bear a host of indignities at work while she finished her chemotherapy. Despite two more demotions (one following her mastectomy and another while she was undergoing radiation treatments), Janice continued to work. She needed to hold on to her health insurance.

Ironically, she was now doing the human rights training and advocacy for the same agency that was treating her so abysmally. During the summer of 1994, Janice thought she was doing very well physically despite a nagging pain in her back.

Then, in October of 1994, during a routine exam, her radiologist discovered a tiny lump in her neck. A bone scan confirmed that her breast cancer had metastasized to the bone.

Janice was referred to Dr. Anthony Elias at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who spoke to her about stem cell transplantation. She was told that she had only a 20% chance of success if she had the procedure.

"Well, someone's got to make up that successful 20%," she figured, "so let it be me!" Two weeks before she was hospitalized for the transplant, Janice received her first poor job review. Instead of being devastated, she refused to acknowledge it by signing, and this time she found a group of lawyers who knew how to help her.

While she was in the hospital, she signed the papers filing suit against her employer. "I had always fought for other people. This time, I was fighting for myself and it felt very, very good!"

By the fall of 1996, Janice was recovered enough to begin interviewing for other jobs. A few weeks into the process, she began to shake badly and to lose weight rapidly. Then, just before her 40th birthday, Dr. Elias found another lump in her neck. Janice had always planned to have a huge celebration on her 40th birthday. With the news of the new lump, her friends and family wanted to cancel the party. But Janice, as strong willed and focused as ever, was adamant. "Whether I have active cancer or not, I've made it to 40. That was my goal and I've achieved it, so we're celebrating!"

Which is exactly what she did. Despite her weakened condition, she rented a hall and celebrated all night long with her family and friends. In the meantime, Dr. Elias put Janice on Megace to control her cancer.

When she fell down a flight of stairs and broke her ankle in three places, it was determined that an overactive thyroid, not breast cancer, was causing the shaking and weight loss that so debilitated her....After a dose of radiation to her thyroid, she went on Synthroid to regulate her thyroid function and finally, she began to heal....

Today, Janice McGrath's health is, in her own words, "Really good!" She has a monthly infusion of Pamidronate to help strengthen her bones, takes Arimedex instead of Megace, and adheres to a small vitamin regimen.

She laughs a lot, spends time with the people she loves, and is a strong believer in support groups. Her energy level has improved steadily. "In 1997, I was so weak, I could barely stand up. I couldn't even lift a three-pound weight. But by the fall of 1998, I was able to do a seven mile hike up Mt. Caribou," she says proudly. Then she laughs her unmistakable laugh. "Of course, I blew my knee out in the process, but I did it. I made the climb!"

Janice McGrath has been able to draw from a core of inner strength that has made her the tough, veteran survivor that she is. "I've learned to be really grateful for every day. Even on the bad days, I try to name five things I'm grateful for. When I was very sick and I could only come up with two or three things, that was okay too."

In June of 1999, Janice and her constant supporter, the love of her life, Jerry Noones, married. In 2000, they built and moved into their beautiful Sandwich, Massachusetts home.

Of course there always has to be enough time for the children in her life--- her two nieces, her nephew, and her stepdaughter. They help her stay focused on what is important in life. And lastly, there is her job as the Executive Director of the New England Coalition for Cancer Survivorship.

"I'm so excited and optimistic about it," Janice says. "I wanted to start back to work part-time in a professional job I truly believed in. Now I have this incredible opportunity to advocate, to educate, to develop programs and build membership for a coalition of cancer survivors!" Janice's eyes shine with excitement at the prospect.

Lynne, a board member of NECCS and the Director of Survivorship Outreach for the New England Division of the American Cancer Society, is eminently qualified for her job. The story of her survivorship is astounding.

In October of 1969, when Lynne was just sixteen months old, she was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer of the nervous system, and was given only three to six months to live. She was treated with surgery, chemotherapy-- and radiation at a time when this therapy was still in clinical trials.

Thanks to the efforts of a skilled medical team, and the strong faith and dedication of her mom, baby Lynne beat the odds. She thrived and survived.

Despite this early threat to her life, Lynne wasn't home free. At thirteen years of age, she began to experience chronic pain in her right leg. Initially, her doctors were unable to find its cause. "They actually told my mother that I was seeking extra attention and might need a psychiatrist," she says.

Fortunately, Lynne was blessed with a persistent mom who stayed focused on her child's pain which was indeed very real. After two months and nine second opinions, mother and daughter received the shocking diagnosis of bone cancer.

"The doctors wanted to amputate my right leg and told my mother once again, that I had three to six months to live. Three to six months seems to be the theme with me for some reason

.... Obviously, the doctors were wrong both times." Rather than amputating Lynne's leg from the hip down, a physician who was a pioneer in the field of bone grafting, removed her ileum and replaced it with a graft.

However, when the graft became infected, it had to be removed, and Lynne was told that she would never walk again without the aid of crutches. But once more, the determined teenager beat the odds.

Not only did she survive this second cancer, but a few months later she was walking. "I pushed and pushed myself, and today I'm walking without the aid of crutches or a cane.... I'm alive to tell this story, and I still have my leg!"

Since Lynne was a typical teenager who longed to fit in with her peers, it wasn't easy for her to come to terms with being a double cancer survivor. In fact, she recalls being embarrassed and ashamed of her cancer ordeal.

Because she limped, it was difficult to hide the fact that something was wrong. "I used to create all these wonderful stories," she says. "I blamed my limp on everything from a moped accident, to water skiing, to a snow skiing catastrophe. It wasn't until I went to college that I started to realize that being a cancer survivor was not only something amazing, but something to celebrate publicly."

Lynne reminisces about the early years of her survivorship. "Back then, the cancer survivorship movement didn't exist," she explains. "The medical community didn't help you become a cancer survivor. You were not encouraged to become an active participant in your treatment, nor was there any discussion about the positive impact of cancer survivorship on your life."

So Lynne's approach to survivorship had to be intuitive and she takes great pride in the fact that she was always "a difficult" patient.

"I needed to know everything, to understand the reasoning behind everything my medical team was doing.... As a teenager, I had permission to read my own charts when adult patients wouldn't even think of doing such a thing!"

Lynne's proactive approach to her illness and treatments placed her squarely at the forefront of the cancer survivorship movement. Today, Lynne is happily married and is the stepmother of Stephanie who is ten and Timothy who is nine.

"If you asked me fifteen years ago if I ever thought I would be married and have children, I would have said, 'No way!' I can't physically have children, so I thought nobody would ever want to marry me."

But when her husband Steven came into her life, she fell in love with him instantly. "I just knew he was the one- and I wasn't afraid to tell him I was a cancer survivor. He's very, very supportive of me."

Clearly, both personally and professionally, Lynne is a busy, fulfilled individual. Although her overall health is excellent, she must contend with the "late effects" of the very childhood treatments that saved her life.

Chief among these is chronic pain. "For a long time, I felt very guilty if I cried, was having a bad day pain-wise, or needed extra help at the hospital. I was very upset that I had to go to a pain clinic and take painkillers because I couldn't handle the pain on my own. I felt I was letting everyone down because I'd always excelled at the role of 'the patient who's beating the odds'."

The pressure of being a tower of strength for everyone else was often overwhelming and Lynne soon learned an important lesson of survivorship. "I'm only human," she says. "I can't be positive 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When I need to take a day for myself to just lay in front of the TV and relax, then I do it. It's okay to have a bad day, to acknowledge it, kick back, and then move on."

Over the years of her survivorship, Lynne has learned many other important lessons. She shares these with other cancer survivors in her professional life, in her volunteer work, and on the Cancer Survivors Network.

She is a veteran survivor and a skilled storyteller who is wise in the ways of survivorship. And she is on a very important mission.

Lynne wants to empower fellow cancer patients/survivors (and their family members) by challenging them to become active participants in their care and in the political arena. She wants them to join the cancer survivorship movement. "There are over 8 million survivors in the United States alone," she says. "We have a voice-- a loud voice. We can work together to make a difference in our ongoing care."